US GIRLS
US Girls, Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA 6/23/25.
“Like James Said” is such a fun way to start the record. How do you decide what opens an album? We knew as soon as the arrangement was settled that it would be the first tune. Something about the way those opening chords sounded, everyone in the room agreed, “Thats gotta be the first song on the album”. It sounds like something getting started. It grabs you and pulls you in and that is what you want from the first song on an album.
You’ve been making music as U.S. Girls for nearly twenty years. If you could go back and change anything about your debut, what would it be? And if not, what’s something you did back then that may be unconventional, but you still stand by? I wouldn’t change a damn thing about my debut album even though I recorded it with each track in the red. Back then, I thought that “red” meant it was properly recording. I still stand by that, it was right for me at that time. No shame.
My first introduction to you was through In A Poem Unlimited. What record do you think represents you most truthfully? Each record I’ve made has been a little time capsule that preserves my age, where I lived, who I was collaborating with, how far along with my singing studying I was, etc. Each album is a snap shot of certain facts, but who I am truthfully, who the hell knows?! I don’t think that’s something I could ever really represent in art.
What’s been your favorite release so far this year? Or alternatively, your most surprising favorite of the year? Sister Smile by Lightman and Lightman
A few songs off the new record have harmonica, but in “Bookends” it’s especially sick. At what point writing that song were you like, “yeah this needs harmonica”? Once the songs were solid and the instrument palette set, harmonica became the apparent soloing instrument to feature. I had never worked with harmonica and making an album in Nashville and all, it felt like such the obvious choice that it wasn’t even a choice at all. It was just the logical thing to do.
What is your approach to songwriting? What do you see first when you’re constructing the song? I have no set approach to songwriting. It’s a case by case basis. But more often than not, it starts with an event or experience in my life that I have the need to process and exorcise.
Shot and Written by Danielle Ciampaglia
